VRBOReviews 1,999

I have been booking through VRBO since 2011 and have been quite satisfied. Naturally I went back to VRBO when I decided on PCB for my wedding and honeymoon. My fiancée booked a one bedroom condo for 158.00 dollars a night. Great price! After picking through details I found a booking fee on top of the cleaning fees and property management fees. To my dismay and horror I found out that VRBO has been sold to home away. So I'm being charged twice for booking! Never again will home away or VRBO be part of my holiday plans.

I am in the process of fighting a charge back - I am unable to get the docs I need from VRBO. I think I finally have what I need - a screen shot of the cancellation policy with the box checked for the cancellation guest in question. Then YOUR merchant service provider, the ONE and ONLY ONE you offer to people like me to pay your fees, sends me this:

Send the rental agreement to the guest to sign and return and have the guest initial any important clause in the agreement such as your cancellation policy or policies around pets or smoking. This can and should also be done at check in. Currently, VISA does not accept E-signature in regards to proper disclosure, they only support click to accept. Part of the reasoning is that with current technology, VISA is unable to determine when the signature was provided or if it was copied and pasted.

REALLY? Visa doesn't accept checked boxes... or ESignatures... how are you protecting me? I am sure others do not know this.

VRBO is one of many vacation rental sites now - please do not auto renew my membership. Very shady relationship you have with the CC Processing 3rd party.

It is pretty unbelievable that after witnessing AirBnB's successful business model and user-friendly website that VRBO would continue to operate as horribly as it does. The website is SO poorly designed and confusing. The app never works properly. But the best of all, they take a HUGE cut in the reservations AND will restrict your listing out of the blue! If you are not doing the amount of business they approve of, they will just drop you. How does that make any sense? Oh, it's because they want you to PAY $900 for a yearly subscription! IDIOTS! You want me to sell more but pay to sell more? What planet? Who operates this POS site? This is the second time I've been restricted and I swear I will NEVER advertise my properties again! Air BnB is the REAL DEAL!

Normally I don't get a snippy customer service rep but I have twice with this team. To their credit they are Americans and not Phillipinos or Indians (non-native speakers) but they copped an attitude when I suggested their site had a glitch (two, actually). To fix the glitch the tech marked a Traveler Inquiry as Spam which is incorrect. The VRBO site actually showed this Traveler had "1of2 Payments Outstanding" when she never booked in the first place. In fact, my page STILL lists this Traveler as owing. Furthermore, I rec'd a reply from a customer rep a week after my initial contact and it had nothing to do with my inquiry, so I responded back five days ago and have yet to hear back. These guys don't have their act together (yet they're charging a total of 16.6% of my booking, all fees included.) Not getting my monies worth. Wish they had competition!

We listed our home in February 2016, and less than two weeks after, VRBO began sneaking a "service fee" in to our guests. We have a large home, and for some guests this fee was $499.00--can you imagine paying nearly $500.00 for NO SERVICE--and this was in our opinion a violation of our contract.

Several months ago, a guest tried to extort me, by implying a negative review would be forthcoming if they did not get a refund (approximately $5000). These were horrific guests, who were drunk and disorderly, and had the police called on them by three sets of neighbors. When I received the correspondence saying they were not the "kind of person to leave a negative review but expected a refund", I contacted VRBO in writing and told them a guest was trying to extort me, Customer Service wrote back that I should "call the police" if I felt threatened and that I could write a response to the negative review. Fast forward several weeks, the nasty and full of lies review is posted. I have upcoming guests contacting me to ask what the condition of the property is, and a month-long booking canceled as a result. I wrote a response saying this review is "malicious and untrue" and VRBO will not post my reply, saying it it is "unprofessional" to write that her review is not true. I was told by a supervisor at VRBO Customer Service that merely implying extortion is OK--that guests must directly write, "Refund my money or I will write a negative review"--as if most people clearly advertise they are breaking the law! I think a first year law student knows extortion, either explicit or implied, is illegal. I will be moving our properties over to AirBnB and other sites as soon as our contract is up next year.

I reserved a property, the site took my credit card information and the dates for the reservation on a property. I booked my flight, then VRBO said "sorry" the owner did not respond. The owner DID respond. VRBO cancelled my reservation. The owner said it was available.
This site is terrible. The "service fee" is money that goes directly to VRBO.

My husband rented a place in VA that turned out to have mold. We were unaware and became VERY ILL and had to cut our stay short. The owners of the home have refused to contact us back, so we contacted VRBO about the property. They told us they will not contact the owners nor help us to do so. They also refused to post our review of the home on their site as it was negative. So future renters won't have any information on the mold, and the owners will not be required to disclose it. Disgusting all around. The pictures we took would justify our review.

It is very unfortunate that this website monopolizes the vacation rental market for owners to advertise their properties. We have been owners on the site for many years and have continued to experience deceitful practices by them year after year, along with no resolution to any of our concerns. They do not take responsibility and will not resolve any anything for you. Time and time again we have had horrible customer service experiences with them. Now they are deceiving their owners to sign up for online bookings. While they advertise it as helpful in the booking process to the property owner, it actually tacks on a HUGE booking fee to potential renters that utilize the service. It does not look good to those that come to your site, interested in booking your property, to have such a big bogus fee tacked onto their vacation. Once you sign up for this, you cannot go back... they refuse to let you... head warning to those of you who have not signed up for this... don't do it! Even though I didn't like it at first, Airbnb looks better and better and actually provides more inquiries to us now than VRBO and it's affiliated sites. Wish there were more sites to advertise on that provide similar exposure though. They are at the top of all search engines and that really sucks!

VRBO has now started charging a HUGE service fee! I went to reserve the same place I reserved I had previously reserved a few months ago and this time VRBO had tacked on a $192 service fee! Seriously... the details were for 24/7 service. You have got to be kidding me... the manager at the place we rented was the one who provided that! I will seriously consider looking thru someone else to reserve my reservations! $192 is ridiculous!

I will admit that yes I've had 2 or 3 great experiences on VRBO and met great property owners but this is due to detailed research prior to booking. However on the flipside I've had one apartment double booked and was notified by the owner 1 week before. They eventually found us another apartment but not suitable for a vacation rental. Got no compensation from VRBO.

FRAUDULENT LISTINGS! - I've seen two such listings (in the same country and about a year apart). The latest was an apartment that is actually currently for sale (know this because I recently viewed it on the realtor's website). They've used the exact same photos and made up a convincing little story on the listing. It actually had one review which was similarly convincing however the photo used was from a real estate agent in the same country. This person I've met during property viewings and know for a fact they live in the country, however the listing portrayed them as visiting for the first time.
I've tried to contact VRBO re this listing and the other but there's no direct link to report these type of listings and they most they do is say fraudulent listings are covered by your booking.
So in the matter of interest, you show up to your vacation rental with your family and having paid a good few thousand dollars. Get out of the taxi and go to where you're "supposed" to be staying and the unit doesn't exist, is really not for rent or a property for sale. How does this VRBO guarantee help you at the last minute?
Great if you can get a property with over 10+ reviews but if not don't risk it!

Badly trained rude CSR - VRBO/Homeaway customer service is one of the worst i have encountered. I just had a CSR hang up on me 2 minutes into a call because I disagreed with his assertion that their fees were better that AirBnB. I had been on hold and transferred around for 35 minutes before I finally go this imbecile.
Process - Another time, I had them send me a threatening email to refund charges that had already been refunded to a guest because they did not take 10 seconds to check.
They recently changed their subscription and fees which caused a lot of confusion but do not seem to have staffed up to cover the questions.
VRBO is not open about the fees they charge homeowners. Besides a subscription, they also charge 3% for the payment system. Compared to other listing sites which only charges 3% total. I actually get more bookings on those sites for more per booking

I have been a VRBO owner for 3 years and they are the worst company I have ever done business with! Since their new service fee was implemented my listings are starting to drop to the bottom of the search, regardless of what filters or sort criteria are used. I hate this company!